Also English language books are going to be predominantly sold in English speaking countries. And it makes sense cost wise to target both markets together rather than printing individual runs priced for individual countries where possible.

And Canada and the US both use dollars; there is potential ambiguity in price for manufacturers and retailers, so better to clearly specify both. There is not ambiguity with the peso - if a customer sees a book is $10 they will know there is a different price in pesos.

A lot of democrats could have won this election. Ultimately the big mistakes were allowing Biden to run unchallenged, then sticking with Biden until it was too late. Harris then had an impossible task to win.

If the democrats had an actual democratic process, and put their best possible candidate forward they may have won. Instead this election was very much a repeat of 2016 - the wrong candidate, being favoured through to the election by the DNC. In 2016 the DNC closed ranks around Clinton because of fear of Bernie and also because of a crazy notion that it was “her turn”. Biden didn’t run when he should have. This time Biden ran when he shouldn’t have, and other strong candidates in the party didn’t get a chance.

But it was more than the candidate - the election focus was totally wrong. 1/3 of the electorate did not vote - and this election is not a story of Trump breaking through. Trump got 74m votes in 2020 and about 74m now. The Dems got 81m votes in 2020 and 71m votes now - Trump is basically static; but the Dems lots 10m votes because they ran a bad campaign. Those missing 10m voters are in the 1/3 who are not included in polls; because Trump has not broken much above his 74m ceiling. The Dems floor fell out under them instead.

The polls always showed 50:50 but that was just “likely voters”. Really 1/3 support dems, 1/3 support reps and 1/3 weren’t going to vote. That vast pool of people are not all never voters; the missing 10m are in there. THAT is where the Dems should have been going for votes. Forget the republicans; they should have been reaching out to the disinterested and disenfranchised. A positive message that actually addresses their concerns.

The “moderate” Republican votes were never in play nor worth courting, and the abortion and democracy focuses were not the priorities of voters. The dems needed to listen to the actual voters - and the message of what the voters cared about is clear: the economy. The Dems needed to have a clearer message on the economy - “it’s doing great” does not tally with voters experiences who are living with high cost of living after inflation. Prices haven’t fallen back, they’ve just stopped rising as fast. The message to voters should have been “we’ve done some stuff but there is more to do” and offer clear policies are wage growth, housing/rent costs etc. Give the disinterested in particular something to vote for.

So yes, maybe Bernie would have won. But lets not forget he chose to endorse Biden, not run in the democratic party primary. So it’s actually his fault too.

Only Dean Philips, Marianne Williamson and Jason Palmer actually stood up and challenged Biden in the primaries, and they were criticised for doing so as if they were the reason Trump would win.

The other candidates gradually stepped aside to allow Hillary to run. The big one being Joe Biden not running as it was her “turn”, allegedly after the deal between the Clintons and the Obamas.

If Biden had run in 2016, he probably would have won. And Trump would be a footnote in history.

There is a difference between not campaigning on trans issues and being against trans interests.

The Dems should have campaigned on issues that the electorate cared about like the economy, rather than focusing on issues like trans rights.

For example Gay marriage has never been a central issue in a presidential election campaign, yet it was delivered. They can look after trans interests without falling into the Republican trap of focusing on it in a campaign.

The dems would have been better parking the polarising issues like abortion, and focusing on winning votes from the 1/3 of the electorate who didn’t vote by listening to what their priorities were.

The republicans vote is not much up on 2020 despite all the media hysteria - about 74m in both 2020 and 2024. Whats changed is the democratic vote has dropped massively from 81m to 71m - 10m votes lost. Those voters didn’t vote Republican, they just didn’t vote.

So the Dems needs to appeal to the huge number of non-voters. They’re not never voters - they’ve voted before but they could not bring themselves to vote Democrat.

The question is why the dems lost those votes. I’d contend that most people don’t follow politics and are not interested in abortion or trans rights or “threats to democracy”. What they care about is their own lives - can they work, are they paid enough, can they afford housing and food. The Democrats should have focused on a positive message and ideas for the economy to counter trumps economic message.

Instead the Dems mostly ignored the economy and I even continue to hear them complaining that the stats show they did a good job on the economy. But people with low paid jobs don’t care if you created new jobs, and they don’t care that inflation has slowed - they care about their own low paid job, their now higher rents and living costs without pay rises to catch up. Inflation has slowed but not gone into reverse - the cost of living is much higher than it was 4 years ago and that’s what the Dems needed to address for voters.

The dems could have won this. They don’t need to go to the right and be like Trump, they just need to have a clear message and plan to address the things that worry the american voters. Not just talk to themselves about issues they care about.

As people have said, you can add Jellyfin as a service to start with windows regardless of users being logged in.

No one seems to have said how to do this.

The easiest way is to use the NSSM open source tool - it stands for “Non Sucking Service Manager” and it gives a GUI route to create services, as well as some useful reliability and fall back functions.

It can also be used from the command line if you prefer but regardless it’s probably the easiest way without faffing around with powershell or command line and in built windows tools (which do suck).

Edit. The official website is NSSM.cc and it includes guidance on how to use it. There are also plenty of guides online if you search “how to create a windows service”.

Edit2: the easiest way is to use the Jellyfin windows installer itself but the documentation is pretty vague on that and gives a warning about ffmpeg config. It should work but using NSSM will give you more direct control. I think the installer uses NSSM anyway.

Yeah I get what you’re saying. I would put some caution for Fedora Kinoite - if you want a system that just works and you don’t want to tinker, then it’s great. It just works, and it updates in a very sane and stable why. But if you want to learn Linux and tinker, then it can be very frustrating working with an Atomic distro at the start.

So if I was putting Linux on my parents laptop and didn’t want to be dealing with too much tech-support, I’d probably go for an atomic distro. But if the user wants to learn how to use linux, play with it, tinker then I think an atomic desktop is too restrictive to start out on.

While Mint with Cinnamon isn’t the most cutting edge feel to it, there is a huge wealth of resources out there for people to tinker and play with the system and it’s a great spring board in to other parts of the Linux world. I do love KDE Plasma though - it’s my favourite DE and I used to run it on Mint before I finally moved to a KDE based distro.

I’d recommend Linux Mint generally for noobs. It’s popular and has lots of tips and advice available online, easy to find. It’s easy to install, and as it’s an Ubuntu derivative you get a lot of the benefits of the big user base without the downsides of Canonical (such as Snap being forced on you). I used to use Mint, and it’s a good stable daily driver.

In terms of your specs, you should have no problem with running it as laptop, but as a 2-in-1 device you may find some specialised drivers don’t work out of the box. The most common is finger print readers, but also some of the switching between Desktop and Tablet mode can be tricky. Having said that, I own a Toshiba Satellite 2-in-1, and I installed Linux without issue. I don’t and never have really used it as an actual Tablet though; it ended up being a gimmick too far for me - they’re just too heavy and cumbersome as a tablet, and even the touch screen (which works fine in linux) is just a bit pointless for me. However I have KDE on my Toshiba now and it works well as a 2-in-1 for me at least.

The best thing to do is flash a USB stick with Linux, for example Mint, and try it out to see how it works with your hardware “out of the box”. Linux Mint has a few spins for desktop environments: Cinnamon, XFCE and Mate. None of them are really designed to be Touch based interfaces to be honest. Cinnamon is the main/high end DE and it is ok with Touch interface.

I would say KDE and Gnome are better DEs for touch screen and convertible devices; I personally prefer KDE but both support Touch well - they just have different design ethos. Both can be installed in Mint, although as they’re not “main” DEs for the distro you sometimes get some minor janky integration of the Mint tools in the KDE or Gnome desktop (e.g. sometimes the task tray icons for Cinnamon based tools just aren’t as well integrated into the system themes of KDE & Gnome). You also can end up with duplicate apps in your app menus (cinnamon tools sitting alongside native KDE/Gnome tools which can be a little irritating). But the system works fine and a lot of these things can be tidied up if it bothers you.

But Mint is very Noob friendly, and I think it’s a good way to get into the Linux world. Pretty much everything can be done via the GUI, and it has opted for a default Windows-like feel which can really help with getting used to it. Cinnamon is also still pretty flexible for creating some other interfaces to experiment. Gnome is far removed from that windows feel and is also pretty rigid in it’s design philosophy - it’s kinda “take it or leave it”; personally I don’t like it. You can push it do other things though with extensions, so there is still potential to experiment. KDE does a good job of a default Windows feel but with more design flair/slicker feel, but it also has a huge range of options for making pretty much any interface you like. One reason I left Mint is because I wanted a distro which is built around KDE rather than me installing it separately (I’m on OpenSuSE Tumbleweed now).

So overall, I’d recommend Mint, and use the Cinnamon version. Flash a USB and try it out (note it will be slower/feel sluggish compared to a native install, but should give a feel for how it handles your hardware). If you install it, I’d also recommend a dual-boot setup rather than ditching Windows completely if you’re completely new to Linux. Another option is install on a portable SSD attached via USB, and don’t touch your actual hard drive. That way you can get a reasonable feel of an actual Linux system without messing up your laptop. It’ll still be slower than a true native install but generally faster than a live-USB stick (you can of course also partition and install a full install on a USB stick itself rather than an SSD for the same effect).

EDIT: Just worth saying; if you decide to install Linux, be very careful where you install it. Double and triple check, as the last thing you want to do is accidentally wipe your windows install!

OpenSuSE Tumbleweed is my current favourite. It’s user friendly with good system tools in Yast, it’s got good repos including community repos with lots of software.

Its also a rolling release but has been stable and reliable for me. Leap is their point release version if rolling is not right for you.

I’ve been using Tumbleweed for over a year, and it’s my main OS since I stopped using windows. I’ve dual booted Linux for many years but always mained windows up until Tumbleweed.

Previously I used to use Mint; it’s decent but switching to Tumbleweed (and in particular KDE) convinced me to completely switch from Windows. Everything “just works”, and I do a fair bit of gaming without issue with nvidia drivers, steam, and lutris.

For example I’ve been playing Stardew, Cyberpunk 2077, Distant Worlds 2, and Factorio recently - all in Linux and all without issue.

Bullshit news. If you look at the boring stats, trumps vote is up a bit on 2020 but the dems vote is down massively.

This was not a big breakthrough for Trump, he made small gains in lots of countues and some groups. But the main issue was a bad Democrat campaign which failed to get people out to vote.

In 2020: Dems 81m votes Rep 74m

In 2024 (95%+ count) Dems 70m Rep 74m

The dems lost 11m votes in 2024! The reps so far have gained none, but probably will be up 1-2m in the end.

So this idea of some great Republican breakthrough is rubbish. The real story is the Dems lost a lot of votes.

If they’d had an open primary and a fresh candidate, or if Biden stepped down sooner and they had an actual contest to pick a successor, or even if Harris had been able to run her own campaign from scratch, they may have had a chance.

The dems lost this election because the DNC backed Biden against all voices who raised concerns about his fitness. When they finally relented it was too late. Then they ran a campaign around abortion and democracy, rather than the number 1 concern of those who did vote: the economy.

The lesson of this election is NOT that Trump has the answers or has made some breakthrough. The lesson is the dems ran a bad campaign and did not offer the voters something good to vote for - 11m voters disappeared - that’s who the dems should have been targeting, not the “never trumps” and going more right wing.

The polls said the country was tied 50:50. This is bullshit - polls only showed “likely voters”. The raw numbers actually showed 1/3 support dems, 1/3 support reps and 1/3 weren’t going to vote. The none voters are who the dems should have been targetting - they’re not never voters because 11m went missing from the election!

The dems lesson is very simple: target the disenfranchised voters with positive Democrat policies. Don’t try to be more Republican to beat the republicans, it doesn’t work and will never work.

They won in 2020 because those 11m came out to vote angry about Trump. The dems didn’t give them a reason to vote for them this time.

They must learn this lesson as they seemingly did not understand what happened in 2016, nor even 2020.

AI is a marketing term at the moment, and it’s all orne big financial speculative bubble. Just look at Nvidia and how it’s share price is so divorced from reality.

LLMs can bd uaeful tools and have value in themselves. The problem is the hype and misuse of the term AI to promise the earth. Also the big tech companies rushing to push tools that are not yet fit for purpose.

Any tool which “hallucinates” - I.e. Is error strewn and lies - is fit for nothing. It’s just a curio and these general tools are going AI and LLMs a bad reputation. But well designed and trained LLMs targeted at specific tasks are useful.

“Time to switch to uBlock Lite or another ad blocker”

No. Time to switch to Firefox or derivative such as Librewolf.

It’s nice to blame voters for parties failing to win elections. That absolves the party of responsibility - “we were right, it was voters who are wrong”.

But that won’t win an election. And that attitude will gift the mid terms and even 2028 to the republicans.

The DNC fucked up - it backed Biden despite clear signs he was not a good candidate for this election, the primary process who a fig leaf of democracy rather than putting forward the party’s best and brightest, it then fought concerns of Biden health and hid the truth, then when he finally stepped down late in the day it arranged a coronation for Harris. And then after behaving undemocratically repeatedly it had the gall to make the election about “saving democracy”.

Voters didn’t do these things, the DNC did.

Instead of demonising voters and non voters, it’s better to ask what should the party have done differently to win them over and what does it need to do to win them over in the mid terms.

This is a good article calling out the true problems with the campaign.

I keep seeing people blame voters, but the only group to blame is the Democratic Party. Parties exist to serve and represent voters, not the other way round.

The Dems failed to address the genuine concerns of their traditional base - primarily the economy - and that left the race open for the Repulicans.

The Democrat message on the economy seemed to basically be “things are not as bad as you think and we’ve already done what was needed”. Instead they focused on abortion and a threat to democracy as the main issues of the election.

Yet for many lower income households, they rent and have been hit doubly hard by inflation. Home owners have been shielded from the rent portion of the cost of living crisis, and experienced less hardship. The dems did not seem to understand that and effectively left the field open for the republicans.

Looking at the numbers, Trump hasn’t significantly grown the Republican vote or if so, it’s a relatively small increase. Yet the Democrat vote is way down on where it was in 2020.

There are lots of other failures on the part of the Dems - allowing Biden to run essentially unchallenged, the leadership aggressively pushing back against concerns about his suitability, Biden waiting until very late to step back and Harris being coronated and having to use Bidens existing campaign. Harris was a decent enough candidate but she was given an impossible task thanks to an out of touch and poorly led party.

The Dems lost this election, rather than Trump winning it.

This. I get people are angry but they need to step back and look at this for what to was. It was a bad Democrat campaign, from a party that is out of touch with voters. I don’t blame Harris for this, I think she was a decent candidate given an impossible task.

The Dems did not contest Biden running despite obvious health concerns, then let him hold on til the bitter end dismissing all concerns, then had a coronation for Harris. Not very democratic and yet they made this election about democracy. And then they focused on abortion, as the main issue.

Yet voters concerns in the exit polls were clear - the number one issue was the economy. The dems failed to sell their message on the economy, they let Trump control the topic.

This is the sort of attitude that gifts power to repulicans ever more.

Instead of blaming voters, blame the Democrat party. It needed to appeal to voters concerns and needs. It needs to ask why it failed to convince younger voters, and address what their priorities are.

The obvious answer at the moment is the Dems failed to campaign well on the economy. Harris defended the last 4 years as a success but for many lower income people of all ages it will not feel that way. Middle class voters who own their own homes were shielded more from inflation than renters whose housing costs due rent inflation sky rocketed as well as all other living costs - they were hit doubly hard.

The Dems decided to focus on women’s reproductive issues and a fear of democratic loss, and hoped women would come out and vote balancing our other groups. This failed. It’s clear Harris and the Democrats should have campaigned hard on economic change and offered a different vision to trump.

So don’t blame voters. Blame the Democrats for this and many other failings in this election (no real contest at their primary, Biden hanging on til late with patronising dismissal of concerns over his health by the Dem leadership, and then a coronation of Harris who also inherited Bidens team rather than had time to build her own campaign).

Looking at the overall vote count the Rep vote seems largely similar to 2020, or slightly up, but the democratic vote has fallen significantly. This is largely due to the Democrats failure rather than due to Republicans success.

I think this is an oversimplification and lets Democrats off the hook.

A large part of how he won is to do with how polarised US politics are. The Democrats and Republicans are polar opposites, to the point that no matter who the candidates are the core voters could never conscience voting for the other side. Some Republicans may hate Trump but they will still vote republican as they see the Democrats standing for things they just don’t agree with (whether that’s Immigration or abortion or conservative values or fiscal conservatism etc). It just takes one; things are so polarised that it’s inbuilt that it’s a binary decision. The Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans for carving up US democracy between the two of them. If you look at polls, they say 50:50 split but actually thats just “likely voters”; the underlying split is more like 1/3:1/3 with a whole 1/3 of the electorate disenfranchised and not bothering to vote. When they talk about undecideds, they’re talking about 2% of people likely to vote; not the whole 1/3 of the election who don’t vote at all. 3rd parties don’t get a look in, and even get blamed for taking votes from the anointed of the two big parties.

On top of that, the Democrats really fucked up. The party leadership supported Biden running, and no serious candidates stood in the primary race even though he was already clearly a weakened candidate due to age. Then when he was finally persuaded to go at near the last minute, it was too late. They again didn’t have a primary, they had a coronation, and then a short run to establish her. I like Harris but she inherited his team, his set up and was unable and unwilling to paint herself as a change candidate as she wouldn’t criticise the perceived mistakes of her own incumbent white house. She focused on abortion, and could seemingly not address the economy in a meaningful way to appeal to voters.

I don’t think it’s because Americans are easily fooled. I think it’s because both parties have created an extremely polarised political landscape which they have both used to their advantage to suppress 3rd parties and other views across the 50 states. In addition, the Democrat party tried to claim it was an election about “preserving democracy” and yet chose to do that by not enabling democracy in their own party.

Hopefully the Democrats will take a long hard look at themselves. And the good news, a slither of good news, is that in 2028 there will not be any Clintons or Bidens hanging around whose “turn” it is to run. The party can actually have an open primary and the best candidates can stand instead of feeling they shouldn’t run. Would we be in this position if there had been a full primary and the candidate had been someone like Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsome, Josh Shapiro or even just a truly independent run by Harris?

So America has decided and it looks like it won’t even be close. The republicans will control Congress and the presidency. And looking at the numbers this won’t be about turnout. In michigan for example, young voters went for Trump. He looks even on track to win the popular vote.

America has actively chosen Trump. They can’t blame turnout and it looks like they can’t even blame their crappy electoral system.

There will be a lot of recriminations in the Democrat party, and there is a lot of responsibility on their side. They were undemocratic, snuffing out their primary process, lumbering the party with a dud until the last moment and then rushing to pick Harris. I like Harris but they should have had an open primary even in July, and of course Biden should have stepped out of the election a year ago and let others compete and have a good run at the white house.

But also they are responsible along with the republicans for the 2 party system with its corruption, gerrymandering and shut down of options for any body who doesn’t agree with either party. We can only hope this will stimulate the Democrat party to embrace actual democracy. It didn’t last time.

But ultimately American voters have gone for Trump, they want him, they deserve him. The rest of the world will just have to deal with him.

I’d recommend video streams from BBC, Sky News and Channel 4 all in the UK. Channel 4 is partnering with CNN for data and shared stories, and their UK election coverage earlier this year was well regarded. TV news in the UK has to be impartial by law so they will not take a side in the election. They will however voice opinions from both sides.

Having said that though all coverage will endlessly speculate all night on what ever result means because that’s the nature of elections and filling air time.

Regarding the Guardian, that is not regulated but it is a good quality broadsheet. It is left leaning and effectively supports Harris but it’s coverage will still be good quality and not as partisan in the style of US media. But expect it to be biased somehwta in Harris’ favour.

A prediction for the 2024 US election

I bet it’s deliberate. Like a power play knowing his story is clearly bullshit but the morons he’s appealing to are believing it making him feel even more superior.